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Across the country, our students are falling further and further behind the rest of the world in educational achievement. In Washington, elected representatives have not found a way to improve our nation's schools. Local leaders across the United States have also struggled to solve this problem.

Enter Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, who has an opportunity to adopt Mayor Michael Bloomberg's successes in education and apply them across New York City.

If de Blasio succeeds, according to a columnist for the New York Daily News, he will build a national legacy for himself, proving that he can go beyond President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg in their visions for improving our schools:

Big Bill, who talks about how charter schools are a sideshow, will have to account for the superior results consistently posted by the Success Network schools, in Harlem and around the city.

And he will want to study the results produced by the Harlem Educational Activities Fund, or HEAF, a program that has achieved stunning success getting high-potential inner-city public-school kids to live up to that potential. Both programs consistently run laps around most other schools.

If he’s brave enough to appoint a chancellor who would follow and expand their programs, de Blasio has an opportunity to build a truly national reputation, and to carve a new path forward for our children. His legacy would then be immense.